And so it goes
by squarey
Summary: Ch 6. So I would choose to be with you. A short story about when when friends slip the line. Bobby and an OC, with a few other LO peeps. Thanks for reading.
1. In every heart there is a room

**The set-up**: The LOCI characters are not mine. The OCs are mine, like Bobby's friend Lucy Jones. This builds on prior work. I posted this first chapter as the last chapter of "A Bedtime Verse." Chapters 2 onward are new to this story strand. In first person point of view, from Lucy Jones.

If you are a new reader, this is a story about friends slipping the line.

_**And so it goes**_, by Billy Joel

_In every heart there is a room__… __A sanctuary safe and strong__… __ To heal the wounds from lovers past__… __Until a new one comes along_

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I stood outside Bobby's apartment door about to knock when I realized I had his key in my pocket. I had called Eames about an hour ago to check in. Bobby had been in an accident and was home with 3 broken ribs and whole lot of pain (and pain medication). Eames had stopped by to stay with him a while that morning, but she had been called into work. On the phone with me she was making little sense. It was clear she was caught up in something. She seemed surprised to hear from me, mumbling something about my being in California. I was not in California, I tried to explain, I had met Emil Skoda but he was in New York. I figured she had somehow misunderstood what I had said, or that I hadn't been specific when I left saying I was going to see Emil.

I could see that I probably hadn't been very clear with Alex. I had been up most of the night, thinking. I was involved with Emil Skoda, we were to be married in the fall. But, I needed to talk with Emil about how I was feeling. Or perhaps, I was more curious about his feelings. He had pointed out that I tended to process things without ever talking about them, and then I would come to him with some forgone conclusion. He said that was a bit unfair, that if I wanted him to share his life with me, I needed to share myself with him. And he was right. I did need to talk with him. Not everyone could read my mind like Bobby seemed to usually be able to do.

Brunch had gone completely unexpectedly. I had thought to talk with Emil about love, about what he felt, how he knew he loved me. I wanted to see if his heart fluttered or his heart stood still. I wondered if he thought that way, if he thought about how his heart felt.

Instead he asked me to move to California with him. He was enjoying his job, and I sensed that there was somehow a bit of celebrity about it, that he was building a respectable reputation in some rather high powered circles. Not to mention, he actually seemed to love the weather in LA, which was in stark contrast to the current slushy grey weather in New York.

"What?" My voice was barely a croak, but I managed to say the word.

"Move to California." Emil asked, or rather stated.

"Does this mean you are thinking about not returning to New York?" I evaded his question, and I watched his brow furrow into a bit of a scowl. I had not immediately jumped at the idea of moving to California. I could not imagine moving away from the east coast, I could not imagine moving away from my home, my family, my friends, my life. My conversation about how I felt, about how he felt, suddently felt a bit out place.

"I didn't say that." He hedged, and I almost said, _yes you did_. I knew that was what was going on, why else would he ask me to move to California.

"You like it, California." I said, trying to take a breath, trying to understand.

"Yes, yes I do." He replied, his eyes never leaving mine. I looked at him for a long moment, and I realized that he had done what he accused me of doing. He had thought something through, he had thought it all of the way through without every speaking to me about it. He was going to stay in California. I knew him, I knew his expressions, his tone.

"You're staying in California, you extended your contract, your obligation." I stated, not as a question. "And now, after the fact, you are asking me to move." My hands were starting to shake so I took them from the top of the table and set them in my lap. He didn't respond, but I did see him shift slightly, as if trying to decide how to respond. "Don't, don't say anything." I said, I stood. "I came to ask you how you felt about me, how you felt in your heart, you know, does your heart flutter, does it stand still, does it do anything when you think of me…" I could hear my voice increase in volume a bit. I placed my napkin on the table. I could see he was surprised by, what for me, was a bit of an outburst. I usually processed internally, but not this time, this time I was feeling it for the first time, thinking it for the first time. I placed the engagement ring on top of the napkin. "You must think I'm so silly." My voice broke, I had tears in my eyes. "I'm not moving to California." I stated what had to be obvious.

"Lucy…" He stood, saying my name, but not knowing what to say.

"You just made a long term commitment, and you never even brought it up to me, you never even let me know you were considering it. Don't _Lucy_ me." And, I surprised myself by getting angry. I could tell he was completely taken off guard."Don't _Lucy_ me." I repeated, meaning don't you dare tell me you love me, and I had turned and walked away.

A few hours passed by where I literally was just sitting at a table in my favorite coffee shop, not really drinking my favorite hot tea, not really reading the paper on the table in front of me, not really even watching all of the people walking by on the sidewalk. I guess I was just kind of sitting there stunned. I don't know what made me look at my watch, but when I did, I returned to earth, and realized I had said I would check in with Alex Eames.

When I had called Alex, she had said she had been trying Bobby for the past 30 minutes and he wasn't answering. She figured he was probably asleep, and she would go by his place to check on him. I told her not to worry about it, I could easily go by, I wasn't in California, in fact, I was in New York and my evening was wide open.

So, I found myself standing in the hall, wondering if I should let myself in with the key. I ended up knocking, and then letting myself in.

"Bobby." I said his name, letting him know I had let myself in. His apartment was dark, but I could see the flicker of his television set. I walked toward the family room, expecting to see him on the sofa, but instead he was reclined in a chair, his feet up on an ottoman, the afghan over his legs. I could tell he had showered, and even shaved. I was surprised that he had shaved into a goatee. It was actually kind of handsome, giving his face new angles.

"That was fast." He said, taking me aback a bit.

"What was fast?" I asked, my head still spinning from my day. I thought his head was probably spinning from his meds. His eyes looked tired, a little out of focus.

"California." He said, rubbing the back of his hand across his nose.

"I wasn't in California." I replied, sitting down on the ottoman near his feet. I could see a look of confusion enter his expression.

"Eames said you were with Skoda." He said, looking at me.

"Yeah, but not in California." I offered, wanting to talk with Bobby but not knowing how.

"Why are you here?" He asked, he sounded odd, his tone was odd.

"You didn't answer your phone when Alex called, I told her I would come by to check on you."

"Well, check me off your list." He said, snidely. I leaned in a little, trying to follow him, his mood, his tone.

"Have you been drinking?" I asked. In the time I had known him, in as many times as I had seen him practically falling down drunk, I had never really asked the question quite like that.

"Why?" He asked, his non-answer was really an answer for me.

"Why?" I stood, my emotions overwhelming me. "You were just hit by a car, you could've been killed, you have several cracked ribs, not to mention you're on prescription pain medication. Did you chase that down with a drink?" I asked, then I directly followed with "don't, don't answer that." I held my hand out, I could see it shaking, I was shaking. "Oh my god." I whispered, I placed my palm on my forehead, looking at him. I moved my hand to place it over my chest, over my heart. "Oh my god." I whispered again, my heart, it was still, it was breaking, but it was still.

"You should go." He said, looking away from me.

"I should, I should go." I said, knowing he couldn't push any harder for me to go, but I couldn't seem to go.

"I don't need you." He said, he winced as he moved, against the pain in his ribs, so he wasn't as numb as he could have been. And maybe what he meant was that he didn't need me there, right then, or he didn't need me to stay again tonight, but that wasn't what he said, and I was so tired I couldn't really guess at what he meant. All I could think was – _but I need you - _but that wasn't what I said.

"I'm going to go." I said, and I turned, and practically ran out of his apartment.

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_**A/N**_: So much angst, so little time. This will follow along to Billy Joel's most awesome song "And So It Goes" :) Thanks for all of your support.


	2. My silence is my self defense

_I spoke to you in cautious tone__s… __You answered me with no pretense__… __And still I feel I said too much__… M__y silence is my self defense_

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I didn't make it very far from Bobby's apartment. I managed to go about 15 feet down the hall before I hit the wall, with my back first, and then my head. I kind of dripped down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, my legs tucked up to my chest, my forehead on my knees. I wasn't crying, but that was only because I almost felt like I couldn't. It had been such a roller coaster of a day, I felt like I was in shock.

My brain was moving very slowly, I knew that Bobby needed me, he needed me like I needed him. I wasn't certain if it was the best move on my part to let him push me away. That was kind of a test, of sorts. Push hard, see if they walk away, push harder, see if they run away. He was a master at manipulating people, at assessing their motivations, at understanding their perspectives. He knew exactly what to say to me to get me to leave, and I had reacted just as he had wanted.

I don't know how long I sat in the hallway. But after a while, when my breathing was more even, I stood and returned to his door. I could hear him moving around inside, thumping around in the kitchen. I reached out for the knob, realizing it was still unlocked. I let myself in, quietly, unannounced. I walked up behind him in the kitchen, he was taking his pills but this time with a glass of water.

"I think you do need me." I said. He jumped, and winced from the pain of being startled. He turned slowly to face me, using his size to look down at me. I reached up, to tuck my hair behind my ear and he grabbed my hand, looking at my bare fingers. I could feel him looking at my ears, at my neck, at my hand, his eyes traveling from the small platinum wire hoops tucked around my ear lobes, to the necklace nestled in the hollow of my throat, back to my bare hand. Bobby was back on his game, he was putting together that I had on some jewelry, but not the engagement ring.

"Pain can be very sobering." He said, almost as if he read my mind. I had thought he was out of it when I had come by, sitting in the chair, I had smelled the scotch.

"Yes it can." I replied, though I wasn't talking only about his physical pain. He continued to hold my hand and look at me. He softened his hold on my hand, taking a step closer to me. "Emil is staying in California. I am not moving to California." I said, surprising myself by just dropping it in like that, out of the blue. Bobby continued to stand very close to me; I could feel my breathing coming in short, rapid breaths.

"So, you're staying here?" He asked, he shook his head slightly, I thought the medicine he had swallowed was having a fast effect. I irrationally wondered if he had eaten enough today to balance out the prescription. "You're staying here in New York." He added.

"I'm staying here." I said, I swallowed nervously, looking up at him. "I'm staying here." I said the words again, my voice was barely a whisper. I stood my ground in his kitchen, looking up at him. We looked at each other for a long moment, without saying anything. I knew that he could feel it, I knew that he was thinking it, we both knew that there was something much more than silence between us.

I reached out to him, touching his face with my free hand, tracing the outline of his goatee with my finger. He really did look handsome, and I realized that my heart was switching gears, that my brain was catching up, and I was looking at him differently. He staggered sideways a small step, closing his eyes. I moved my fingers across his lips, he still held my hand.

"I should, um, I think I need to, um." He said, opening his eyes slowly to look at me.

"Lie down." I looked at him, thinking that timing could not have been worse. I took a breath, trying to steady my heart. "I'm staying." I repeated.

"I need you to stay." He said, taking my hand to his face, running my hand down the smooth line of his jaw.

"I like your goatee." I said, and I watched him smile. I liked that too, I liked to see him smile. I helped him back to his bed, I could tell he hadn't slept in it since I had changed the sheets and blankets when I had been there yesterday. I moved the pillows and helped him lie down on his right side. I lay down on the bed behind him, watching the rise and fall of his side. I hadn't really realized what a large man he was, I hadn't ever allowed myself to really study him that way. He was asleep within minutes. And as I allowed myself to drift off to sleep, I was thinking about that moment in the kitchen, when we were simply looking at one another, when he was softly holding my hand, how we seemed to exchange more in our silences than most people did in entire conversations.

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**A/N: **Thanks for following me forward to this story. I've seen some shots of VDO lately with a goatee. So hot, the angles of his face (and the short slope of his nose, thank you pfchristine!). Anyway, they still haven't kissed, in all this writing… how fast do friends slip the line? hmm**…**


	3. And every time I've held a rose

**Author's Note**: So, this one follows them both. First Bobby then back to Lucy's POV. Sometimes I just have to go with the voice bouncing around in my brain.

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_And every time I've held a ros__e… __It seems I only felt the thorns__… __And so it goes, and so it goes__… __And so will you soon I suppose_

She had stayed the night, just as she said she would, and when Bobby opened his eyes in the morning, she was sound asleep beside him. He had wanted to roll over and pull her into his arms, feel her against him. But, something stopped him, and it wasn't just the physical pain of his cracked ribs.

So he lay there on his back, the wild curls of her molasses colored hair softly tickling his arm, contemplating the curve of her. She was on her side, facing him, on top of the blankets, still wearing the dark jersey dress she had on from yesterday. His eyes traced the full swell of her breasts, the narrow turn of her waist, the outward curve of her hips. He mentally smiled as he looked down and noticed she was wearing a pair of his bright white tube socks on her feet. She smelled like mint, something about her hair, her skin. When she opened her eyes to look at him, she was almost immediately alert. She was the consummate morning person. "My feet were cold" she said, as if even asleep she could read his mind.

He couldn't help but wince when as she moved to sitting, she moved the bed. He stayed still for a moment, thinking that sitting up was not going to be nearly as easy for him. "You should probably try to move to your side first, then maybe swing your legs down," she had suggested, again, perceiving what he was thinking. She moved around to stand in front of him while he sat on the edge of the bed adjusting to the pain seeing if it would subside trying to think about breathing. She gently took his hand and placed it on her sternum. He could feel her breathing, in and out, and just the tactile sense of her, even and deep, air in and out, helped him regulate his own breaths.

He had this physiological need for her. His body, his senses were much better off when he was around her. She brought him to center, she always had, which was why he always homed to her. Short day, long day, bad day, drunk day, he found himself at her doorway.

"I'm going to rearrange my day." Lucy had said, as his breathing steadied.

"Don't." He managed to say. He didn't want her to rearrange her day. He wanted her to have a normal day, whatever that was.

"Don't what?" She asked, watching him stand, but she didn't step away, so he found himself standing very close to her.

"Rearrange your day." He said, wanting to touch her, to run his hands over her hair, to gently tilt her chin up and kiss her. She looked at him puzzled. "You should probably keep to your day. I'm not the only one in the world that needs you." He tried to muster a bit of sarcasm, but it fell a little flat.

"Ok." She said, looking at him, he kind of wavered on his feet, forcing her to take a step backward so he could adjust his own balance to keep himself from falling forward. "You have a doctor's appointment this afternoon." She offered. "I would like to go to that, with you." She continued, watching him shuffle across the bedroom.

"3:30." He said, nodding.

"Bobby…" She said his name and followed him, so she was standing close to him again. He could practically feel the current in the air, the physical pull of his desire to touch her.

"A normal day, right?" He expressed kind of half of his thought.

"I don't feel very normal." Lucy allowed, looking away for a moment, he could almost see her brain switching gears, trying to understand what he was saying. He was trying to afford her a little space, afford her a little time, to find center.

"You should probably find that." He said, and then looked at her for a long moment. "And, then come back by at 3:00 to take me to my doctor's appointment." He changed the tone of their conversation to slightly humorous. As if Lucy could find her way back to normal in the next few hours.

"Ok." She said, and she was smiling.

"I'm just going to." He pointed to the bathroom. She was gone we came out of the shower. She had scribbled a note that she had a few morning appointments and she would see him at 3:00.

As he headed toward the kitchen, he actually took two steps forward and one step back. Or, maybe it was one step sideways, as he kind of crashed his shoulder into the wall from the pain in his ribs. He was thinking that he wasn't exactly the best at love. He did not have a lot of experience with it. In truth, lately he wasn't exactly the best at life. His existence had been skittering sideways for quite some time, and he hadn't really done much to stop it. Bobby needed Lucy, and he had her friendship. He was a bit paralyzed over the thought of risking their friendship because he needed her love. There would be no going back, and if he screwed this up, he thought that maybe he would push on her so hard that eventually she would leave.

**XxXxXxXxXxX**** Switch to Lucy's POV ****XxXxXxXxXxX**

At first I didn't know what Bobby meant when he had told me to have a normal day, but then I realized that he was probably asking for a little space. Things were turning quickly in my life; I had gone from being a friend to wanting the possibility of more without really giving him a clear headed opportunity to catch up. I was back to finding myself standing within his personal space, waiting to see what he would do. But, this time, it felt different. I could feel something from him that I had never felt before, a need, a desire, a wanting.

So I had stood in his bedroom, intentionally not budging from being just a breath away from him, trying to gauge his feelings. I realized he wasn't pushing me away, at least not entirely. He was just pushing on me so he could get some bearings. I resisted him at first, and followed him across his room. The only reason I acquiesced about not rearranging my day was that he asked me to come back that afternoon to go with him to the doctor.

I went home to shower and change, I needed to get to the office to take care of a few things. I had two appointments today that I was going to keep, the other two I needed to reschedule. While I was home, I cleaned up a bit. There was something about making the bed that helped me think. I decided to completely change my bedding. My mom had this thing about bedding. She thought it always seemed ridiculous to have bedding that you didn't sleep under. I remember I used to help her make the beds, and she would laugh and smile and say we just weren't the type of people that had hotel bed spreads, that were just for the looks and not really for a purpose. That if it was on the bed, it should be comfortable enough to sleep under. And if you slept under it, you needed to be able to wash and dry it.

So, I stripped off my bedding, placing most of it in the wash, and remade the bed with soft white sheets, a fresh feather quilt, and a deep moss green blanket on top. My bedroom walls were a khaki color, with white wood trim. So for my bed, depending on my mood, I alternated between the moss green blanket, a deep red blanket, and a navy blanket. All of my sheets were white. I loved the feel and the smell of lightly chloroxed sheets, another hold over from my mom.

My sister Laura had gone the opposite way. All of those years of plain white sheets and serviceable fleece blankets left her craving for patterned sheets and hotel bedspreads. Whenever I stayed at Laura's house, when I folded down the bedspread in the guest room, because in Laura's house you don't actually sleep under the bedspread, I thought about how the patterns of our childhood affect us as adults. In some ways, Laura was like our mother, in others she was opposite. And, in some ways I was like our mother, and in other ways the opposite. This often left Laura and I opposite from each other. But even so, we were raised with knowing the kind of love where you would set aside your life to put the other person first. Our mom had loved us like that, our dad had loved us like that, I thought Laura shared a love like that with her husband Bruce, and I know that I had that with my friend Annie. I wondered if Bobby had ever experienced that.

Bobby had a connection with his mother. But it was upside down. When the child becomes the parent, so much becomes upside down. Bobby was independent and self reliant, often to his own detriment. So for him to open up to anyone, and actively rely on anyone was an enormous stretch of muscles he never used. By default, he depended on his partner Eames. Or, maybe it was out of years of co-existence. And to some extent, by default, I believe he depended on me to be his friend. I made sure my door was always open, no matter the time, no matter the circumstance.

I smoothed the blanket on the bed and tossed the bed pillows into place, a small feeling of accomplishment inside of me. I breathed deeply, feeling strangely at ease about my ending things with Emil. I had never really completely opened myself up to him. I wanted to, I had tried to, but he always had me a little bit on my guard. At times, his distance from me made me self reliant. When we first starting seeing one another, I rationalized that maybe it made me stronger. I realized that it was this distance that probably made my heart flutter. It kept things on new ground, uncertain. Emil had thought that I was the one introducting the distance. That since my parents passed away, I had a difficult time letting people in. He was partially right, but Bobby had managed to get into my life. And, I realized that maybe I couldn't fundamentally change what I needed. For me to completely give myself to someone, I needed to sense that they had the potential to have the kind of love for me that they would be able to put their life aside to put me first. And no matter how hard I tried, and I knew I really had tried, Emil was not that man.

More than before, I was opening my heart to Bobby. I wondered if he could open his heart to me. In the end, love comes down to a leap of faith, and people without faith, never seem able to fully make the leap.

I could feel Bobby kind of checking me to see if I was sturdy. Kind of like you kick a tire to see if it is safe, or push on a mattress to see how well it will hold you. In our friendship, Bobby would test me like that in a variety of ways, but they were always kind of gentle kicks. I thought that in a romantic relationship, he would probably kick harder. Kind of like he did the other night, when he told me he didn't need me, when he acted in such a way, at such a time, that he knocked the breath out of me and I had to find a place to get some air back into me. I also could tell that he hadn't expected me to walk back in. I knew that ultimately, when he really did love someone, that would be the person he would kick the hardest, just to see if she would stick around.

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**A/N: **Deliriousdancer put this into my head, when Bobby told Lucy he didn't need her, it was like a child saying "I hate you." When kids do this, they're kind of shoving at you, maybe kind of pushing the margins to see where things get stabile. That is exactly how I think of Bobby, he is always pushing the margins of people…


	4. So I will share this room with you

**Author's Note**: Again, this one follows them both. First Bobby then back to Lucy's POV.

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_But if my silence made you leave… Then that would be my worst mistake… So I will share this room with you… And you can have this heart to break_

Bobby stepped gingerly onto the elevator. He had done too much today. He had an appointment with Captain Ross about returning on restricted duty next week. He was actually looking forward to burying some of his brain cells in the minutia of evidence. He had done entirely too much sitting around. Sitting around was not good for his soul, it led to way too much thinking. And, all he was doing was thinking about Lucy.

Yet Lucy would not have known that, because he had done an excellent job of encouraging her to go forth into the world and try to act like everything was normal. She was keeping her appointments at the office, she had even gone to dinner with her friend Annie. He would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that dinner. Though, he guessed, that in as much as Lucy had set her life into a tailspin by breaking her engagement, Annie probably still managed to dominate the conversation. He had been out with Lucy and Annie often enough to know that Lucy was content to sit and listen, and if the conversation turned to her, Lucy deftly turned it back to Annie.

Before leaving the squad, Bobby had stopped in the bathroom and taken some of the pain medication. He had gone without taking anything all day. He had wanted to be perfectly clear headed when he met with Ross. In retrospect, he realized perhaps that was a bit of a tactical error, for he found himself somewhat distracted by the pain in his side as he tried to sit still in the small metal chair in Captain Ross's office.

The meeting had gone longer than planned. They had immediately switched from discussing Bobby returning to going over the details of an active case. When, the Captain had to take a call, Bobby indicated he would see him next week and made a break from the squad. After leaving the bathroom, he had run into Logan, who was like some kind of chatty Kathy, going on and on about god knows what. All Bobby could think about was laying down on his side to alleviate some of the pain in his ribs.

In the elevator, he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He could feel some of the pain growing dull as his body began to metabolize the medication. He hadn't even realized the elevator was going up, so when the doors opened he was surprised to see he was not on the main floor. He was even further surprised to see a certain CSU walk onto the elevator. He had been having sex with her for more than the past few weeks, but he hadn't talked with her since cracking his ribs.

"Bobby Goren." She smiled at him, her silver eyes sparkling. He smiled in return, trying to catch both his physical and his emotional balance. She moved to stand close to him, and he couldn't help but recall a certain time in this very same elevator where standing close to him had gotten very, very physical. "How are your ribs?" She asked, revealing she knew he had been injured.

"Sore." He said, looking at her, not responding to her advance. Her expression changed as she studied him, she looked less provocative, a bit more introspective.

"Right." She said, still smiling, running her finger slightly down the front of his shirt. He still did not respond to her advance.

"I, um…" He started to say something, but she said it for him

"You were fairly checked out the last time you came by my place." She allowed. He remembered, he had been lost in thinking about Lucy. "Well it was nice, between us." She said, looking up at him. He noted her use of past tense. "If you ever check back in, you know where to find me." She said, effectively acknowledging an end to whatever it was they had between them. Her fingers were still lingering on the front of his shirt when the elevator doors opened. Bobby looked over her shoulder, and found Lucy standing on the other side, her expression a bit confused. Lucy looked at the proximity of the woman in the elevator to Bobby, the way the woman's fingers were on the front of his shirt.

"I, um..." Lucy said, in the same awkward way Bobby had just used the words moments before. And, before Bobby could move, Lucy turned and left.

**XxXxXxXxXxX Switch to Lucy's POV XxXxXxXxXxX**

I walked out of the building, still a little dumbstruck from what I had just seen on the elevator. I was supposed to meet Bobby so we could ride home to my place together. He was running late and I was cold from waiting so I had decided to go inside. In that moment standing there in front of the elevator doors, I had panicked. Once outside, I realized that I was acting rather self absorbed. Bobby had an entire life outside of the one I was privy to, and I knew that he had been seeing someone. For some reason, I had managed to conveniently forget that fact. So I stood outside blinking against the bright sun light and was surprised to hear someone calling my name.

"Lucy. Lucy Jones." I turned to see Olivia Benson headed in my direction. I did some volunteer work with assault victims, and had crossed paths with Detective Benson over the past year. In as much as we were friendly, I wouldn't say we were friends. But, we did share a mutual respect for each other's work. We had a case in common currently, and I was thinking that was why she was calling me. It was strange to see her a bit out of context. Her office was not in this building, and we were not in some ER hallway.

"Hi Olivia." I replied, looking toward the street, still thinking about what to do. I still felt like an idiot with some kind of processing problem for having fled from standing in front of the elevator. I should have simply stood there to see what was actually happening. I was beginning to regret my instinct to leave.

"Need a ride?" She asked, following the way I was looking out into traffic.

"Yeah, yeah I guess I do." I replied, thinking that we could ride along and talk about what was on her mind. And, that would give me a bit of mental space to regroup.

"Great, my car is over here." Olivia jingled her keys in her hand, and I walked with her to her car. "Office or home or someplace else?" She asked.

"Actually, home." I replied. "But if you don't have the time, my office would be fine." I added.

"Home is good. We can talk, so I can square some things with a case." Olivia offered and I was relieved, I really wanted to head home. She immediately scooped up my full attention into the details of one of her active cases. I realized she was kind of using me as a sounding board, and in the end I didn't really add much to her thinking except my confirmation that I felt she was on the right track. As she pulled up in front of my home, she seemed happy with the conversation and I could tell some of her ideas were more firmly established in her thinking.

"Thanks Olivia." I said, as I got out of the car.

"Anytime." She smiled, and I stood watching her as she drove away.

As I walked toward my home, I was thinking that if you had asked me when I was a girl what my life would be like when I grew up, I am not certain I would have described my current existence. For example, I would have never imagined so much of my life would be spent so close to such violence. As I headed for my kitchen, I couldn't imagine a day in the life of Olivia Benson. I also couldn't exactly imagine a day in the life of Bobby Goren. Then it irrationally occurred to me that I couldn't imagine a day in _my_ life without Bobby Goren. And, I wondered how I could not have seen that before. But I knew that sometimes you didn't see something until it is literally coursing through your brain with such force it feels like lightning such that you can't put the thought aside.

I leaned forward against my kitchen counter, and closed my eyes. I could feel my insides shaking. My brain had way too many thoughts rocketing around. Then, out of no where, as I stood with my eyes closed, I found myself remembering that day in the stairwell, Justin Kemp's fingers closing off my air, the hard metal feel of the gun against my cheek, against my head. I reached forward to get a glass of water, kind of lost in the image. I was turning around with my glass of water in my hands, and jumped to find Bobby standing in my kitchen. I threw water all over the front of him.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry." I stammered, not knowing how someone so large could have snuck up behind me. I also wondered how he could've gotten home minutes after me, he must've caught a ride or caught a cab about the same time as me. I watched him look down at his wet shirt.

"Lucy, I…" He started to say. "Are you Ok?" He asked. I could tell he knew that I wasn't Ok. But I believed that he was probably thinking I was upset about what I had seen, or thought I had seen, in the elevator. Strangely my brain had moved a bit away from that.

"Yeah, I'm Ok." I looked at him for a moment. "Olivia Benson gave me a ride home, I was just thinking, I can't imagine a day in her life…" I paused. "I can't imagine a day in yours." My hands were trembling. I set the now almost empty glass of water on the counter. "I can't imagine a day in mine…" I started to verbalize what I had been thinking, but Bobby interrupted me.

"Lucy…" Bobby looked as if he wanted to say something, but I could tell he suddenly did not know what to say.

"You don't have to say anything. I shouldn't have run off like that." I offered, still feeling a bit ashamed at being so self absorbed not to recognize that Bobby had a life outside of the interactions he had with me.

"I don't have anything with her. Well, I never had anything real with her, and I don't have anything at all… …anymore… with her." He stumbled through the sentence.

"You're all wet." I stated the obvious, changing the subject a bit, grappling internally with what he had just said, with what I had been thinking about a day in my life without him, and about what it all meant.

I watched him, leaning back against the counter, kind of fumbling with his buttons. Without really giving myself a chance to think it through, I stepped forward to help him unbutton his wet shirt. It was when I was pushing the shirt backward off his shoulders, exposing his bare skin, that I sensed the almost electric shift in the space between us.

My eyes caught first on the bruises across his ribs. I reached out my hands as if to touch his chest, and looked up into his eyes. Softly he caught my chin with two of his fingers, tilting my face up toward his face. He leaned forward and kissed me tenderly, so slowly I lost my breath, his fingers traveled up my jaw, enticing me closer. He deepened the kiss, his hands moving around me, down the back of me, pressing the length of my body against his. As he kissed me and pulled me into his arms I swear I could feel him opening his heart to me, opening his mind to the possibility of me.

**XxXxXxXxXxX**

**A/N**: So, why is it that I get weak in the knees when I think of kissing Bobby Goren? Too much TV for me I suppose… thanks for the reviews :)


	5. And this is why my eyes are closed

**Author's Note**: Just Bobby this time.

_And this is why my eyes are closed__… It's__ just as well for all I__'__ve seen__… __And so it goes, and so it goes__… A__nd you__'__re the only one who knows_

* * *

Bobby's breath was coming in short gasps. He was holding Lucy against him, her breasts pressed against his chest, kissing her with so much longing he thought his heart was going to stop in his chest. However, he realized with incredible remorse that his ribs felt like they were going to crack the rest of the way in half if he kept holding her against him. He sucked up the pain for as long as he could, but in the end, he had to softly release her. He held her in his arms, looking into her eyes and reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. She was looking up at him, her full lips still wet and slightly bruised from the kiss. He went to take a breath, and again, kind of found himself gasping a bit. 

"Oh my god, oh my god." She said, rather suddently jumping backward out of his arms, looking at him, looking at the deep bruises across his ribs. "Oh my god Bobby, what were you thinking?" She said, her hands outstretched, as if she physically needed to do that to keep herself away. It was clear to him that she had suddenly realized that he was in a great deal of pain.

"Lucy…" He tried to say her name, but he realized he was actually winded. So, he paused, and concentrated on breathing in.

"Bobby." She said his name, the shock evident in her voice. "That must have hurt like hell." She said, she was shaking, not just her hands, but he could see her entire body trembling. In truth, resisting the urge to take her into his arms and kiss the air out of her had been hurting him like hell all week. But, he kept himself from mentioning that.

"You're shaking." Was how he finally replied. She looked down at herself, as if she hadn't realized she was shaking. He watched her take a deep breath and close her eyes. He thought she looked incredibly sexy, her mouth open slightly, her eyes closed, kind of expanding her chest. He watched her run her hands across her hair, she was trying to compose herself a bit, and he noticed that her trembling slowly subsided. All he could think about was taking her into his arms and making her tremble like that again. He realized she was looking at him.

"I'm so sorry." She offered. He closed his eyes, realizing that he was actually a bit dizzy. "You should sit down." She said, and she took a step toward him.

"That's um…" He started to say that her coming close to him wasn't actually helping. He found, at the moment, he couldn't concentrate on breathing, with her close to him. He could only concentrate on what it would feel like to kiss her again. So, he closed his eyes, and tried his best to breathe -breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out… and in a moment he could feel the dizziness subsiding.

When he opened his eyes she was standing in front of him, studying him, as if trying to gauge if he was going to fall over. Concern was ethched in all of her featuers. He took her hands in his and kissed the backs of her hands, holding her eyes with his. He could feel her coming closer to him, drawn magnetically to his touch. But he kept a hold of her hands, thinking that if they starting kissing like that again, that would lead to something else, and he would probably faint from the pain in his ribs.

"Oh my god." She murmured to herself again, laughing softly. She took her hands from his, looking at him. "Could my timing be any worse?" He listened to her ask herself that question and he was strangely relieved to hear her phrase it like that. She had just revealed to him that she was feeling the same thing, that it wasn't simply _his_ timing, that her feelings were in a similar place as his.

"Um, I…" He hated the fact that he was starting to feel light headed again, but this time it was also out of exhaustion. He closed his eyes, trying to shake it off, but he couldn't.

"You need to lie down." She observed, her voice was soft, distant. He moved toward the family room, toward the couch. But she redirected him toward the bedroom. For a moment he paused, but he let her have her way. He didn't have the energy to refocus her, and he knew he probably wouldn't be successful. He didn't really even have the chance to wonder how it would feel to be in her room, in her bed, because he was asleep before he hit the pillows. He could feel her kind of wedge more pillows behind his back, to keep him on his side for a little while, so he could take more complete breaths into his lungs.

As he slept, he breathed in the scent of her from her sheets. He dreamed of kissing her, of holding her, of the softness of her skin against his. But after a while, his dreams shifted. He was standing in the stairwell at 1PP, gun in hand, aimed at Justin Kemp. He was aware he was dreaming, but he couldn't seem to wake himself. He'd had this nightmare before, several times before. _Slow down, just slow down_, he was saying to Kemp, his eyes on Lucy, on Kemp. His thoughts were moving fast, assessing the situation, searching for information, trying to figure out a way to slow things down. Before he could say or do anything else, Kemp's gun exploded, but in his dream it was Lucy who dropped to the stairs, it was Lucy's blood on him. He had done all the wrong things, or maybe he hadn't done enough, and he had lost her.

He woke with a gasp, covered in sweat. From the light outside he could see that even though he felt like he had only been asleep a few moments, he had been asleep more like a few hours. He lay there for a moment, breath uneven, pain in his ribs, in his head, in his heart. He was terrified of loving her, of losing her. He closed his eyes and realized that by kissing her he had already set things in motion, his heart was moving forwrad, and there was no way he could turn his heart around.


	6. So I would choose to be with you

**Author's Note**: Final verse, with Lucy.

_So I would choose to be with you__… __That__'__s if the choice were mine to make__… __But you can make decisions too__… __And you can have this heart to break_

* * *

I was in the kitchen when I realized that I could hear Bobby moving around in the bedroom. I was working on my laptop at the table. Well, at least I was pretending to work. Really, I was just kind of sitting there thinking about Bobby. My eyes kept returning to where he had held me and kissed me, my mind kept reliving that moment. 

He had been asleep for about 2 hours. He had looked so completely exhausted, and I had been so lost in his kissing me that I almost hadn't noticed. I closed my laptop and pushed it aside as I heard him shuffling down the hallway. When he entered he looked kind of pale, slightly disheveled. Around his shoulders, he was wearing the blanket I had laid over him. He still had on no shirt. He looked very sexy, and I actually shook my head in an effort to put that thought aside. He also looked like he was in a good bit of pain.

"I dried your shirt." I said, which in all of the things I wanted to say was really the furthest thing from my mind. I watched him reach out and shrug on the shirt, clumsily buttoning a few buttons. He was watching me as I stood and walked toward the sink to get a glass of water. "You could probably take this again." I handed him the glass of water and the prescription. He took it without objection, so I guessed that I had been right when I thought he looked like his chest was causing him pain.

He moved to lean against the counter, sill watching me. I could tell that his sleep had been restless, he looked pale, distracted. I felt as if he was watching me as if he was still half asleep, like I somehow seemed like a ghost to him.

"Bobby..." I reached forward, touching his face, still loving the goatee, looking at the sadness in his brown eyes.

"Do you want this?" He asked, surprising me. I took a step closer to him, moving my fingers lightly to touch his jaw, watching him yield into my touch. He closed his eyes. "Do you want me?" He asked, and I lost my breath. I wondered what dreams had haunted him for him to ask me such a question. I hoped I had made it clear to him how much I wanted him when he had kissed me in this very place in my kitchen just a few hours ago.

"Yes, I want this." I said, waiting for him to open his eyes. But he kept them closed, and when he did open them, he looked away from me. I moved into his line of vision, forcing him to look at me. He didn't say anything, but his eyes were so vunerable and held such sorrowful uncertainty, that everything inside of me melted. "Yes, I want you." I whispered. I leaned forward and kissed him, careful not to press my weight against his ribs. "I want you." I repeated the words as I kissed him.

"I want this, I want you." His words were just a whisper. He tilted his head, studying me as he kind of hesitantly touched my face. And right then, right there, my life swiveled on its axis and I realized that my heart was his to break.

**

* * *

**_**A/N:**_ And so it goes… (and with me, it will probably go into a new story :). 


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